Google Acquires Rangespan; Native's Slow Launch Abroad

On Friday, Google acquired Rangespan, the second UK company Google has bought this year. Based in London, the company provides back-office services for online retail, with a focus on expanding product selection. Sounds like something Amazon does, no? Rangespan has raised $5 million, and will shut down operations to integrate with Google. Rangespan said on its home page, “As part of the change, we will wind down Rangespan’s services. We’ve already begun working individually with each of our retailers and suppliers on this process.” Read more via TechCrunch.

The Native Lag

Big publishers such as BuzzFeed, Business Insider and HuffPost are increasingly expanding ad operations abroad, yet ad revenue has been slow to follow. Digiday reports, “Overseas, publishers are finding that display still dominates. The native ad craze that’s sweeping through the U.S. hasn’t caught on overseas.” This could prove to be a challenge for publishers like BuzzFeed, whose ad strategy follows a native-only model. Read more.

Harnessing Enterprise Data

HootSuite has unveiled its latest social SaaS platform, “uberVUBoards,” and the company’s analytics GM, Mark Pascarelo, calls it the first step to “democratizing social media.” The platform is a data-visualization tool, which lets users identify a metric, pin it to a dashboard and generate a report. The widget was designed with HR specialists, IT crews and investor relations in mind, and seeks to address the increasing uses for social media data. Read more via PandoDaily. Enterprise data will and does meet marketing data.

Addressing TV “Tribes”

You could say Time Warner Cable Media is quietly disassociating itself from television to stick with the cross-screen script. The ad sales side of the cable conglomerate took a device-agnostic approach to its digital NewFront on Friday, launching “Audience Select,” a cross-screen audience-targeting tool. It also debuted in-house creative agency Kernel to help marketers plan multiscreen campaigns that tap in to TWC’s anonymized audience data set, dubbed “TV Tribes.” More onCNBC.

The Big Win

Earlier this year, four holding companies pitched Microsoft for control of its global and media ad business and on Friday Dentsu and IPG emerged victorious over Publicis and WPP. The shift is part of Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to centralize marketing, a concept the company is calling “One Microsoft.” IPG will take charge of creative efforts worldwide, whereas Dentsu will manage Microsoft’s media planning and buying, as well as search ads overseas. ClickZ has the story. This would seem to be good news for the Dentsu-Aegis trading desk AMNET.